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It’s Going To Hurt.

I’m not talking about when you want to have a bowl of cereal and then you realize you don’t have any milk. That’s inconvenient, not heart-breaking.

And I’m also not talking about the “pain” you feel when you’re trying to buy tickets to One Direction but the show’s sold out. That’s embarrassing. They’re catchy—but you let someone buy those tickets for you… you don’t buy them for yourself.

That time you found out pro wrestling wasn’t real? Ok, we’re getting closer.

Think bigger.

Breaking up with a significant other that you are emotionally and financially invested into… because they were cheating on you… and you only found out because you caught them? Well… let sucks. And you’re damn close.

As a true sports fan, I think I speak for a lot of us when I say it’s probably easier getting over an ended relationship than it is to get over any of the Fatal 5:

Emotionally Devastating Event #1—An injury ruins your season.

Season-ending?! This is not a good time!

An injury to a single player in a team sport… not a big deal, right? Most of the time you’re right. At least you better hope you’re right if you want to avoid EDE#1. Because it’s a team sport. There’s supposed to be other players to pick up the slack… backups that may or may not fill the void.

But what about when that injury is so bad, it just destroys you as a fan.

If Kendrick Perkins doesn’t blow his knee out, I doubt this happens in 2010**.

If Bernard Pollard doesn’t take out Tom Brady’s knee, maybe Super Bowl XLIII ends like this. Instead of with the Patriots watching from home.

And don’t forget, EDE#1 is robbing us of an entire summer of beard-growing and Got Heem.

HEARTBREAK.

**And for that matter, I doubt Perkins gets traded to OKC in 2011… And the Celtics don’t get stuck with Shaq/Jermaine O’Neal/Semih Erden/Big Baby/Wilcox/Hollins failing at the 5-spot over the years. And maybe instead of only 1 title, we have 2 or 3. I could go on and on…

EDE#2—Someone else ruins your season.

Sorry, Danny Coale. You obviously did not catch this.

Sometimes you can make it through an entire season… only for someone to take it all away because they are dicks.

In America’s war against Canada, you KNOW Joe Carter broke America’s heart. Or at least Mitch Williams’. And by the way, my home country’s greatest moment is not the home run. It’s the fact that Coca-Cola actually made that commercial.

For the “hero”, these are the moments dreams are made of. But for the victim, welcome to HEARTBREAK.

EDE#4—An icon retires/moves on.

Unless you're this guy. Because he's only crying because everyone stopped caring YEARS ago.

An argument could be made that this falls under the EDE#2 category. But there’s a difference. EDE#4 involves someone on YOUR team! This is the kind of heartbreak that you just don’t get over right away. It might takes a few months. It might take a few seasons. On-field performance might improve.

But when you spend years and years seeing this every day (literally), seeing this instead… well, sentimentally-speaking, it sucks.

Or what about following this guy for years, and then you see this guy instead? Yeah… it’s a kick in the pants.

You don’t want to admit it. Maybe your team benefits from the change—on the field. But in reference to a team’s culture? Yeah, ask Indy how well they’re recovering from this moment in time. Andrew Luck be damned… they’re feeling HEARTBREAK.

EDE#5—The end of an era.

I bet the Mariners wish they could go back to the pile. Before the current Mariners took their jerrrrrrrrbs...

EDE#4 sucks. It hurts. But it gets worse. Losing one player is usually just the start. EDE#5 happens when an era ends. I don’t mean your team wins back-to-back World Series, retools for a season or two or three, then comes back to prominence again. I’m talking about special eras.

If you’re a Bulls fan, you are most likely enjoying what you have. But how did it feel for those years before you had it… the years after this happened? You got lucky you got to recover so fast. Sometimes it’s not so quick of a turnaround.

BARGAINING—Well… there’s a lot of uncertainty going on around here. We’re doing ok, but maybe if we can tank juuuuuuust enough… we’ll land that #1 pick that will put us up in the elite! And just to make sure, let’s get rid of some of these better players that are still trying.

ACCEPTANCE—We can’t do any worse than we’ve been doing. Let’s give these guys a shot… maybe they’ll turn into something.

How long those stages last… impossible to predict. So just like any worthwhile relationship, enjoy it while you can. Because you’re gonna want all the memories you can collect when it’s time for heartbreak…